


Sherlollipops - Counting

by MizJoely



Series: 221 Sherlollipops [210]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Reichenbach, Pre-Relationship, Sherlolly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8568565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/pseuds/MizJoely
Summary: A post-Reichenbach snippet/character study from Molly's POV.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago (post Reichenbach, matter of fact) but never found a story to put it in so it’s been languishing in my files since then. Instead of trying to find a home for it in another fic, I decided to just post it as-is, a standalone snippet for your reading pleasure.

She counted.

How had that happened, when had it happened?

And more importantly, _why_?

What about her, Molly Elizabeth Hooper, made her special enough to count in Sherlock Holmes’ life?

Yes, she was a pathologist. Yes, she was very good at her job. But there were other pathologists who were equally good at their jobs – some were even brilliant. Was it because she was always so pathetically eager to please him, because she was a willing slave to his every outrageous request?

She doubted it. A simple fetch-and-carry was easy to dismiss, to ignore, to treat like somebody who didn’t exist or have feelings of her own.

So it must have been some time after Christmas, that horrible, horrible Christmas two years ago, that she’d started to count as “somebody” rather than “nobody.”

He’d been awful to her, hurting her without even realizing he was doing it until suddenly he did. Realize it, she meant, her thoughts as much a jumble as her words generally were around him. He’d gone so far as to apologize and offer a quick peck on the cheek before his mobile rang and dragged his attention back to whatever case had been consuming him.

If, she thought tartly, you could call that obscene moan a “ring.”

Still, she stood firm in her conviction that it was after that Christmas that she started to count as someone not just in Sherlock’s periphery, but someone actually in his orbit, someone he took notice of and, she dared to hope, cared about. Oh, not as much as he cared about John, his best mate, or DI Lestrade, who brought him such lovely cases to ease his boredom.

Possibly not even as much as he must care about his family, the brother who’d gotten him such unrestricted access to Bart’s, maybe even his parents, although he never spoke of any of them.

She’d always assumed it was more out of a desire for privacy, since she knew he liked to give very little of himself away the way others gave so much of themselves away to him without even knowing they were doing it.

She, personally, had always felt like an open book to him – one he wasn’t particularly interested in reading, but had had it stuck under his nose so often he couldn’t help picking up the basic plot and characters, all of which he found boring except when he needed something.

Like now? Was that what was happening now, was it like those times when he told her her hair looked nice so she’d fetch him a liver or a pancreas or a cup of coffee?

He’d scared the shit out of her, standing there in the dark, speaking to her without even looking.

“You’re wrong, you know.”

Molly gasped and whirled to face that voice in the darkness. His voice. She held her chest as he continued speaking. “You do count. You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you.” He turned to look at her. “But you were right. I’m not okay.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

He turned, took two steps closer to her. “Molly, I think I’m going to die.”

“What do you need?”

Another step. “If I wasn’t everything that you think I am, everything that I think I am, would you still want to help me?”

“What do you need?”

He took another step closer, then another, till he was right in front of her. Then he spoke a single word that nearly broke her right there. “You.”

Since he couldn’t possibly mean what her silly, stupid, overheated heart and body wanted him to mean, he must need her to do something, something only she could do for him. So she asked, no stuttering, no second-guessing herself or him, just asked the question. “What do you need me to do?”

She still couldn’t quite believe that he meant it, but when their eyes met and locked – Sher-locked, she thought, semi-hysterically – she knew he meant every word.

She counted. He needed her.

And she would never let him down.


End file.
